The stairwell rings from the constant dip-dip of a leak somewhere within. The stained metal walls echo each bump and scrape as we shuffle down into the dark abyss. Rust paints the walls in drawn streak like vomit drying from giants standing overhead.We’ve stepped into a deep steel chamber of stairs leading down, down with no bottom in sight.

Creaking beneath our feet, the stairs stumble long, turning after every 10th step, taking us deeper and deeper. We pass a slit cut into the tainted steel walls every other floor and light shines in to illuminate the grimy rails that hug each turn.

My father is ahead of me, holding my small hand. I must be about seven years old based on how his warm, dry hand envelopes mine. Our footsteps sound dull and flat in this rusted tin-can as we march steadily forward, down towards a funeral for a friend.

No one speaks and I feel as if I should try to comfort my father. His brown coat hangs limply on his worn figure as he marches on, leading me with his head hanging low. I try to speak but can’t find my voice, can’t drum up the vocals needed to make words.

I know why we are here, to mourn the death of a friend. But who the friend was or how we know them eludes me. The metallic clanging of the many feet trodding along the whisper thin, scrap metal stairs ring low in my head. A soft hum of mourning embraces my mind and heart.

As we reach the bottom of the stairwell, a stack of cardboard boxes await us, each filled with soda cans. Shiftily we search for any watching eyes as the people in line before us snatch up a box and duck beneath a low hanging doorway. Into another dim room with dust clouds floating through the thin sliver of light afforded by the slightly shuttered window behind us, each person in the funeral procession dips into the inky blackness and disappears.

I told tight to my father’s hand, uncertain of the dark room ahead but not necessarily afraid. Just grief stricken. I feel the feelings of loss tighten around my heart, squeezing inside my chest. Panic rises as I feel like I can’t breath, like all my happiness is being pressed from my soul and I begin to weep.

My father turns and I see nothing but aching sadness in his eyes. He slowly presses his long, pale finger against this lip and motions for me to be quiet. Then, as silently as a ghost walking through the memories of their living days, my father lets go of my hand and stoops to pick up his box of dusty, old soda cans.

My tears roll in silence as I watch his stooped back slip into the well of darkness ahead. Shuffling feet against the metal and the soft banging of hands using the railing for support circle around me as my tears fall, in sync with the leaking stream from above.

I reach forward, my sobs bubbling from my small body, and grab an old, dilapidated box of cans. They bounce against each other, tiny and thin, making small clacking noses as I step forward.

Looking up, my tears blurring my eyes and a stinging inside my nose burns as I try to hold back my sadness, I realize the inky well ahead of me is grief. The physical manifestation of sadness.

This room, these stairs, this place is what sorrow would be if it took form.

In the early dawn light, just before the sky began to fade from inky blackness into the azure hue of morning, she felt his arm snake around her waist and pull her into his warmth. She sighed her happiness into the silent still air around their bed as he bent into her shape and together they dozed.

With a kitten’s purr, she shifted her shoulders to fit against his chest and let their contentment settle around them.

The alarm wasn’t due to ring for another 30 minutes but she knew she wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep now. With his breath against her skin and their legs tangled together, she felt herself slowly drift awake as the world outside slowly shifted from its own drowsy state of motionlessness.

She loved this time of the morning. When the breezes in the trees outside rustled the leaves with a gentle hand and the deep breaths of the sleepers ever-so slightly disturbed the silence. When everyone else remained asleep but, with her eyes closed, she was awake and thoughtful.

Drawing the cool sheet up against her chin, she lay there still, listening to his breath draw in and out, wondering if he was dreaming and what of. If he saw worlds of color and odd dancing figures or if his dreams were more realistic.

She felt him move slightly and smiled as he bent to kiss the back of her neck.

“Morning,” he said in his sleepy voice.

His deep, vocal bass rolled against her shoulders and her skin prickled excitedly. Hearing him first thing in the morning was one of the things she adored most, both for being the first to be greeted by him but also for the sleepy, thick pitch when he was just rousing from sleep. She smiled and greeted him in return.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked.

“Not really, just resting I guess.”

“Anything on your mind in particular? Or are you just being selfish and hogging the blankets all to yourself again?”

Snorting quietly, she adjusted the excess of fabric she never realized had gathered on her side. With the blankets rearranged and their bodies resting in the warmth of the cocoon they built, they both settled for a bit, trying to lengthen the early morning in the hopes of pushing away the day ahead.

But he was right, there was something on her mind. A question he had asked recently, one that would change their futures. She hadn’t answered but he hadn’t pried. He was giving her space and time.

She didn’t need it. She already had an answer. And a suggestion.

“Hun,” she started in a whisper. “About the other night…”

“Yeah?”

“Well, you know my answer is yes.”

Without a glance, she felt his smile beam across his face, like a child on Christmas morning. His arms squeezed against her in a tight embrace and he kissed her shoulder. Biting her lip, she continued.

“But I was thinking, what if we used my mother’s ring? You know, the one she passed on to me.”

Before she could continue the shifting of the pillow case beneath his head rustled as he shook his head in response.

“Nope. We’ll go out and pick out a ring. A fresh start, something new.”

She bit her lip. It would be nice to have her own but she was practical, logical. There was a perfectly fine ring not being worn just waiting for someone to use it. It seemed wasteful.

His body was still and she knew he was gauging her hesitation. He cleared his throat.

“I just think you could use a ring that’s uniquely yours to start this off right. Doesn’t need to be fancy but something that’s your and only yours. Besides, we don’t want to jinx us before we actually say ‘I Do’.”

Chuckling she responded, “I never knew you to be the superstitious type. What’s with this ‘jinx’ business?”

Glancing over her shoulder, she could see just edge of his face, enough to notice the smile had faded. Furrowing her brows together she turned to him.

“Well, it’s just that…” he began with hesitation. “I think it’s a good idea we start fresh and not with something from a past that isn’t what we want for our future.”

A deep breath collected in her chest. She knew what he meant. Pain circled through her heart as her pulse quickened and tears sprang to her eyes.

She knew exactly what he was alluding to.

Not long after they started dating, a deep rift tore open within her family and the ring she now had in her possession had not been worn for some time. It was simple and gold with bands twining around each other, housing a diamond at it’s core. It had become a symbol of so many feelings, both good and bad. Her childhood had been beautiful and filled with great memories. But the dissolving of her parents’ marriage had cast a shadow over the lovely diamonds and the tightly wound circle, symbolizing eternity together, a bond never broken.

The little girl in her still held onto the ring, wishing to wear it as her mother had in the heyday of their marriage when together they were a family, whole and solid. But the woman now laying here, agreeing to her own future with a man she loved dearly, saw the ring as a broken promise.

He was right, the ring would jinx it. Why carry on a past into their future that neither of them wished for?

Rolling into his arms to face him completely, she saw the grief lined in his face. But it didn’t reach his eyes. There she saw the love he gave her unconditionally. The light of future plans they had together, or dreams and wishes she wanted to make come true with him. Together they had weathered the storm and found they were stronger together than apart. While she watched and suffered along with her parents, he stood by her side, held her hand and let her cry in peace.

Smiling through her tears, she nodded and he nodded back. His smile was gentle and comforting as he reached down to wipe away her sorrows. She took a deep, cleansing breath.

“No more talk about that ring, ok?” he said reassuringly. “We’ll figure it out.”

And together they settled into the quiet morning, their arms encircling each other tightly.

I sat with my finger nails pressed firmly between my teeth as I read through the current chapter of the book in hand. It was intense and I couldn’t figure out what the author was going to do next, both a wonderful yet annoying feature of this particular writer. While I loved the joy of being surprised, I squirmed in anticipation to know what would happen next.

I silently bit down on my nails and thumbed to the next page with my free hand, my eyes scanning to the top and finding my place with ease. Reading was a pastime I enjoyed thoroughly and books to me were collectors pieces. My bookshelves were packed with the books I’d read, standing like figurines in a shrine to all things literary. A shrine I revised often, adding new pieces and reverently returning to those I’ve finished only to read again.

I kept on, my right leg dangling from the couch with my left foot tucked underneath my thigh. And there, on top of his thigh rested my left knee, the single point of contact between us as we read next to each other.

Plock-plock went his stylus as he flipped through articles on his ereader. He was quiet, his head down and his eye flickering across the illuminated screen in his hands, picking up information about new gadgets or reading his own books there in the black type of the computer aged book.

Without warning, a small snort issued from my nose. It surprised me as much as it did him, causing him to look up at me with a question. I smiled and giggled.

“What?” he asked.

Shaking my head, I chuckled slightly and leaned my head back against the couch.

“Nothing, I just had a funny thought,” I responded.

Shifting beneath my knee, he kicked his legs up onto the couch and turned to face me, curiosity winning him over. His dark eyes rested on my face as he brought his head to rest upon his fist.

“No seriously, what’s so funny? And you can’t say nothing.”

I smiled back, biting my bottom lip, knowing that what I thought was silly and slightly stupid. Sharing with it him will only be a disappointment when he realizes it was nothing but a passing thought.

Looking down at my book, I placed my finger between the pages. Closing it gently I smiled to myself. Who could resist that look on his face?

“I was just thinking that we are really in the future now.”

A wave of confusion washed over his handsome features and he crinkled his brow at me.

“What do you mean?”

I laughed again.

“Well,” I started. “Here you are with a ereader in your hands and you flick through the pages like it’s a book.”

“And…?” he asked, trying to see my point before I made it.

“Well, we are the future. I mean, hell, you are reading articles and books via a screen with a pen that turns the pages. We’re practically the fucking Jetsons. All we need now is teleportation and a flying car.”

Me smiled at me the way my parents did when I told them a monster was under the bed and I loved him for it. I loved him for his ability to accept me, my weirdness and my weirdness’ weirdness.

He patted my leg and turned back to his reading, shaking his head and sighing.

Opening my book again, I turned to the sentence I’d left off on and started to read again, smiling at the thought of us reading next to each other on that couch, knees touching, for years to come.

My sunglasses were missing. I couldn’t recall the last time I saw them or when I’d worn them recently. But I suddenly found myself needing them that morning and realized they were not where they should have been.

Standing in my room with my blouse on but untucked and my work trousers unbuttoned around my waist, I scanned the surfaces around me, hoping to spot them staring back at me with a look of disapproval at my state of undress and my room’s lack of organization.

My nightstand stood by my unmade bed, a book I was trying to finish reading resting on top of it in front of my alarm clock. A lamp my friends decorated for me as a house warming gift when I moved in stood behind my book, surrounded by a thin layer of dust. But no sunglasses were waiting for me there.

A tall beaten bookshelf stood snugly in the corner of my room across from my bed. It had been my grandmother’s and I vowed to never let it be donated or sold. My grandmother, much like myself, had been an avid reader and her bookshelf was always full to the brim with literature and poetry, books of all shapes and sizes. As a young child I loved it; the smell of the pages and the piles of reading a delight to snoop through on warm summer evenings when I stayed with her. She would sneak in books for me along the bottom shelf and, like a game of hide and seek, I’d thumb through the stacks to find my hidden treasure. Finding it, the only children’s literature among the rows of fiction and classic stories, I’d scurry to her side where she waited in her arm chair, her knitting in her hands and yarn rolling about her feet. I’d wave the book at her, beaming proudly and she’d reach out to me into her lap and read from my find.

I scanned the ground, a smile on my face as I let the memory of my grandmother fade, and noted that a day of picking up the laundry and organizing my project folders might do me some good. After a steady glance around, ,y littered floor showed no signs of relinquishing my hidden glasses so I knelt down and began to search.

My hand scraped along the carpet, wincing as my skin brushed against the fibers. I unearthed a long lost book, a few dollar bills, a hair-tie and some mismatched socks probably considered long gone and lost in the dryer. But no glasses.

After spending a small chunk of time in a fruitless search of my room for the carelessly misplaced glasses that I desperately needed this particular morning, I realized I was getting frustrated. Soon the tears welled up and I could feel the hot pressure of anger ballooning behind my eyes. I stifled the streams as I pushed and piled things around my room in a hurried whirlwind of motions. I was now running late and the fact that I knew my sunglasses to be close by but could not find them was about to drive me mad.

Absolutely mad.

Soon the pressure released with a small choked sob from the back of my throat and a streak of warmth ran down my cheek. Now I was crying? Over sunglasses?

But I knew it had little to do with my glasses and that I was searching for something else, something lost that I knew could never be found.

Suddenly I reached down and grasped a handful of clothing and tossed them behind me. I reached again and again, pulling up everything I could get my hands on and throwing them around in frustration. I was flinging more than just clothing. Curses and words of resentment flew through the air to pile on top of the useless items I had laying around. I sniffled and sobbed, grabbing at anything within reach and throwing them about, making what was already a mess even bigger.

The morning slowly passed around my flurry of anger and after awhile I found myself spent. My face was slick with sadness and my hair was sticking to the ruins of my makeup, a blonde streak of color tangled with in my view here or there. My back rested against the edge of my bed and my shoulders hung limply as I slowed my breathing and tried to stem the flow from my nose.

She was gone and there was nothing I could do or say to make it better. Trust had been broken, threads snipped and memories sullied.My family would never be the same.

My head was heavy and throbbed. I could barely breathe through my nose and as I lifted my eyes to survey the damage, a headache echoed through my skull. And there they were, sitting at the mouth of my handbag, glaring back at me with disdain and a hoity look of aloofness. My glasses had been there all along.

Standing gently, tears quietly dropping now that my tantrum was over, I reached for my cell phone and dialed the office. Sherry answered and expressed concern at my congested tone. I told her I was ill and needed a day off. She cooed and told me to drink tea and rest up, her honest concern for my health making my tears flow again.

Like a child, I wiped at my eyes with the edge of my silk sleeve, leaving a stained trail of grief and half applied mascara along my arm. I agreed to take care of myself and hung up. The phone leaped from my hand and made a dull smack as it landed in a soft pile of laundry at my feet.

Slinking to my bed, my unbuttoned slacks fell away and I pulled off my blouse in a single motion. Reaching down into the fray on my floor, I grabbed a pair of worn sweatpants and a tee-shirt from my varsity days. In a fluid motion, I dressed myself and then rolled into bed, pulling up my comforter till I was huddled deep beneath its folds.

And there, under the comfort and warmth of my bed, I cried myself to sleep.